· January, 2010

Stories about War & Conflict from January, 2010

Afghanistan: Behind the London Conference

Dafydd watches the London international conference on Afghanistan and opines that the organisers’ new strategy for this country involves buying off low level Taliban fighters and cutting a deal with...

31 January 2010

Palestine: The Commodification Of Gaza

Exiled is a blogger who recently left Gaza - and he is in no hurry to return. In this translation of a recent post of his, we hear his opinions about political propaganda and self-interest, the tunnels to Egypt and the planned steel fence, and the nature of the outside world's concern for the Gaza Strip.

27 January 2010

Nigeria: Bloggers discuss the massacre in Jos

On January 17th, violence erupted in the central Nigerian city of Jos. In the following hours, reports of the conflict spread as witnesses reported mobs armed with knives and machetes roving among burning houses, mosques, and churches. The conflict is ostensibly sectarian: Jos is a major city along Nigeria's “Middle Belt” – the fault line which divides the country's Christian-majority south from its Muslim-majority north.

26 January 2010

Timor Police Brutality Video

Police brutality in Timor-Leste is not new, but getting it on video is. This is something of a “Rodney King” moment for Timor-Leste and its police service.

25 January 2010

Sudan's First LGBT Rights Organization?

Throughout 2009, the Sudanese blogosphere has been in slumber mode. However, many previously inactive bloggers are blogging again along with new ones that have arrived on the scene recently, writes Sudanese Drima, who brings us the latest online discussions.

24 January 2010

Armenia/Azerbaijan: From Home to Home

Global Voices Online's Caucasus editor interviews journalist Seda Muradyan on her documentary film, From Home to Home, for the Frontline Club blog. The film tells of how Armenians and Azerbaijanis...

23 January 2010

Turkey: Solve the Hrant Dink case…

Erkan's Field Diary comments on the case of Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian journalist who was assassinated in broad daylight in Istanbul, Turkey, three years ago this week. The blog...

20 January 2010

Azerbaijan: 20th anniversary of Baku pogrom and Black January

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Black January, the day when the fledgling independence movement in Azerbaijan was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops ostensibly to curtail inter-ethnic tensions in the capital, Baku. Bloggers in Armenia and Azerbaijan, however, remember the date differently.

20 January 2010

Afghanistan: Youth Find Outlets Amid Ongoing Violence

Last year was the deadliest one for Afghanistan's civilians, including children, since the American-led war began in 2001. Despite the circumstances, efforts are being made nationwide by and for youth to maintain their health and education and to empower them.

20 January 2010

Turkey: Third anniversary of Hrant Dink assassination

Three years ago today, Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was gunned down outside the office of the Argos newspaper he edited in Istanbul, Turkey. Often ignored, loathed or detested when he was alive by nationalists on both sides for his message of tolerance and peace, one blogger compares Dink to Martin Luther King Jr.

19 January 2010

Sri Lanka: Impressions Of Jaffna

Indrajit Samarajiva visited war ravaged Jaffna recently and writes about his impressions of the capital city of the Northern Province in Sri Lanka.

18 January 2010

Georgia: Patriotic military classes

In the latest edition of Caucasus Watch, a bi-monthly feature of the blog-based Evolutsia, Inge Snip takes exception to a proposal from the Georgian president to introduce patriotic-military classes in...

18 January 2010

Nigeria: Nigerian bloggers take on would-be bomber Umar Abdulmutallab

On December 25th, the world was taken by surprise when news broke that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian citizen, had nearly succeeded in detonating explosives on a Northwest Airlines flight between Amsterdam and Detroit. At first, many Nigerians reacted with shock and disbelief, some even doubting whether Abdulmutallab was truly a Nigerian.

15 January 2010